Editing Tripartite Pact (section)

==Tripartite relations, 1940–1943==
[[File:1941 Chinese War Declaration vs Germany and Italy.jpg|thumb|upright|China's declaration of war (9 December 1941) was made on the grounds that the Tripartite Pact banded the allies together "into a block of aggressor states working closely together to carry out their common program of world conquest and domination".<ref>[http://www.jvl.leverage.it/china-s-declaration-of-war-against-japan-germany-and-italy-december-1941 China's Declaration of War Against Japan, Germany and Italy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170423154032/http://www.jvl.leverage.it/china-s-declaration-of-war-against-japan-germany-and-italy-december-1941 |date=2017-04-23}} at the Jewish Virtual Library.</ref>]]
The "joint technical commissions" required by the pact were established by an agreement of 20 December 1940. They were to consist of a general commission in each capital, consisting of the host's foreign minister and the other two partners' ambassadors. Under the general commission were to be military and economic commissions. On 15 December 1941, the first meeting of all three commissions in one capital, Berlin, took place, labelled a "Tripartite Pact Conference". It was decided there to form a "Permanent Council of the Tripartite Pact Powers", but nothing happened for two months. Only the Italians, whom the Japanese mistrusted, pushed for greater collaboration.{{sfn|Boog|Rahn|Stumpf|Wegner|2001}}

On 18 January 1942, the German and Italian governments signed two secret operational agreements: one with the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] and another with the [[Imperial Japanese Navy]]. The agreements divided the world along longitude 70° east into two major operational zones, but it had almost no military significance. Chiefly, it committed the powers to co-operation in matters of commerce, intelligence and communication.{{sfn|Boog|Rahn|Stumpf|Wegner|2001}}

On 24 February 1942, the Permanent Council met under the chairmanship of Ribbentrop, who announced that "the propaganda effect is one of the main reasons for our meetings". The representatives set up a propaganda commission and then adjourned indefinitely. The military commission in Berlin met only two or three times by 1943, and there were no trilateral naval talks at all. Germany and Japan conducted separate naval discussions, and Italy consulted the Japanese independently for its planned [[siege of Malta (World War II)|assault on Malta]] in 1942.{{sfn|Boog|Rahn|Stumpf|Wegner|2001}}

The economic relationship between the Tripartite powers was fraught with difficulty. Japan would not grant economic concessions to Germany in 1941 for fear of them ruining [[events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor|its negotiations with the United States]]. In January 1942, negotiations on economic co-operation began, but an agreement was not signed until 20 January 1943 in Berlin. Italy was invited to sign a similar agreement in Rome at the same time for propaganda purposes, but none of the supplementary Berlin protocols applied to Italo-Japanese relations.{{sfn|Boog|Rahn|Stumpf|Wegner|2001}}